The development of speakers for production of high fidelity sound has led to the development of a series of speaker designs, each optimized to a particular sound range. Such speakers are then combined to form multiway systems for the production of a complete audio spectrum for the reproduction of music and other wide band sound sources. The mechanical requirements of these speakers differ, and are heavily affected by the acoustical qualities of the environment or room in which the speakers are used.
The current invention is in the field of apparatti concerned with development of maximum volume of clean, solid low bass. The simplest method known to produce bass is to mount the driver to a sealed enclosure, called acoustic suspension. The major drawbacks of this design are inefficiency and muddy sounding or distorted bass, both of which are overcome by the next most common design found in the industry.
This alternative system is known as the bass reflex speaker system. In this system, a speaker or sound transducer consisting of a cone affixed to an electromagnetic driver is coupled through the front directly into the sound space or the sound environment. The back of the speaker cone is coupled through a tuned chamber, further coupled to a bass emitting port. The resulting structure provides a higher efficiency in terms of conversion of electrical power into acoustic power in the low-bass region.
In each case the prior art speakers are designed as essentially free standing units without space limitations. That is, the speakers are so directed as to be aimed into the primary listening area. Generally, in practice, the bass speakers are integrated mechanically and electrically with other speakers of higher frequency ranges to create a unitized, multi-way speaker system. The resulting cabinet structures have proven especially unsatisfactory in the field of automotive high fidelity, since, in general, the inside of an automotive body is a relatively small acoustical environment. Free standing speaker systems, by contrast, require acoustical environments which are very large with respect to the size of the speaker enclosure.